The Teaching of Psychology in Autobiography: Perspectives from Exemplary Psychology Teachers Edited by Trisha A. Benson, Caroline Burke, Ana Amstadter, Ryan Sidey, Vincent Hevern, Barney Beins, & Bill Buskist.
45 Scenes from a Teaching Career Elizabeth V. Swenson John Carroll University pp. 309-313

At the time of this writing I am a professor of psychology at John Carroll University (JCU), the Jesuit University in Cleveland. My whole career has been at JCU. I started my undergraduate education at the University of Rochester hoping to be a flute major. When this option seemed like an impossible choice, I transferred to Tufts University, became a psychology major, and graduated with election to Phi Beta Kappa. I received my MA and PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1974 and my JD from Cleveland Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University in 1985. During my years at John Carroll, I have had a few breaks from teaching. When I completed law school, I clerked for the Honorable Judge Ann Aldrich in the United States Court in the Northern District of Ohio. I spent 7 years as the Dean of Student Career Development and almost 2 years as the director of assessment and the coordinator of JCU's required self-study for continued regional accreditation. Each return to full-time teaching convinced me that becoming a teacher was the right career choice.

I have had numerous opportunities to be of service to the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP). These include being president, secretary, treasurer and representative of STP to the American Psychological Association (APA) Council of Representatives, as well as numerous committee chairs.

My Early Development as a Teacher

The most important influence on my life as a teacher was my father, a professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at Case Institute of Technology (now the Case School of Engineering of Case Western Reserve University). I remember how much he loved teaching and how happy he was about the accomplishments of his students. Even though he was a prolific scholar with numerous graduate students, he always preferred to teach the introductory chemistry course. In Chemistry 101, he had the opportunity to teach the subject to fresh minds and to influence their love of chemistry and their future careers. In later years, when the lure of the corporate ladder had ended his academic career, I often thought he wished he were back in the classroom.

Several master teachers have had a large impact on my own teaching. Bernard Harleston, who taught me Experimental Psychology at Tufts, was the teacher I tried to emulate when I had my own classroom. He was a splendid teacher. He explained concepts clearly. His seemingly unbounded enthusiasm for psychology produced the same reaction in his students. After 10 years of teaching and chairing the Psychology Department, I went back to law school part time. Here, in addition a legal education, I carefully studied what worked in the classroom and what did not. One of my law professors, Patrick Browne, in a course on Civil Procedure (which could have been deadly), taught me the value in starting the class by saying where we were going and in ending the class and starting the next with a brief summary of where we had been. I still try to use this technique, no matter how many detours we take along the way.

In my last semester in graduate school, I was thrown in to my own class, my first experience in teaching. It was sink or swim, with no experienced professor to guide me. After the course, I persuaded two adult students to critique my teaching. They were kind, but what they had to say was unsettling. I was a terrible teacher. In retrospect, I do not think I had any idea how much time a new course should take to prepare. It was then that someone told me about Bill McKeachie's book, Teaching Tips. I read the book word-for-word, highlighting many lines, and starring many pages. This exercise produced a completely different mindset. Now I was ready to tackle the real thing.

I was lucky enough to find a position at a nearby university. Lucky because with a husband in a high-powered career and three young children, I had absolutely no mobility. It turned out to be an excellent decision. When I started teaching in this real job at JCU, I taught Experimental Design, Child and Adolescent Development, and Psychology 101. These were subjects in which I was up to date, being fresh out of graduate school. Although sometimes I thought I just fell in to this career, now I know it was because of the role model of my father that I came to love it so. My fondest hope was to compare notes with him in his retirement, but sadly Alzheimer's disease had started to take his memories from him by that time. Without my father to talk to I turned again and again to Bill McKeachie for advice, first by going back to Teaching Tips (by now dog-eared), and later in person. It has been a privilege to know Bill and work with him through our service to the STP and APA.

Working at Defining Myself as a Teacher

The major obstacle I have had to overcome in my teaching has been a lingering fear from early childhood of public speaking. For several years I dreaded the first couple of minutes of every class. I conquered this fear early in my career by using audiovisual aids, especially at the beginning of the class and using visual imagery for myself. The first of these "crutches" is obvious, but the second needs some explaining.

I took an intellectual property course one summer at Harvard Law School from the well known and media savvy law professor, Arthur Miller. One morning the United States Supreme Court had just announced a prominent and controversial Supreme Court decision on affirmative. During the break time in the class session that morning, Professor Miller stepped out in to a hallway littered with broadcasting equipment including a satellite uplink connection. He stood quietly for a moment, perhaps composing himself and gathering his thoughts. He then spoke to a national audience on one of the television networks about the significance of the decision. This image of a moment of self-composing has remained a powerful one for me. Even today, I take a moment to center myself before entering a classroom. It has had everything to do with my self-confidence and my ability to focus on student learning.

I have never thought of my work as a zero sum game. My research, service, and outreach activities (primarily the latter two) have enhanced my teaching in many ways. Fortunately, I teach in a department and at a university that also encourages and rewards this approach.

When I began teaching, I taught research design and developmental classes. After 10 years of teaching and a few stints as an expert witness in court cases involving children, I became fascinated with the legal process. I decided to take a couple of law courses at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University, which offered one of two part-time, evening law programs in the Northeast Ohio area. After just one course I was hooked, and continued on to the JD degree and then to the bar exam. When I returned to teaching after my clerkship, I proposed a course in Psychology and Law. It was offered the following semester, and has been ever since.

Several years later, I decided to restrict my small law practice to child advocacy. This entirely pro bono practice involves serving as the child's attorney, or guardian ad litem, in cases where the parents are alleged by the county to have abused or neglected their child. Because it is felt that neither the parents' nor the county's attorneys can reliably represent the best interests of the child, an attorney is appointed who advocates for the child's best interests. There is no issue of being on the most correct side in a case such as this. The following year, I was privileged to be able to add a new course to my repertoire called Children in the Legal System, a course that is made much easier to teach by this experience in the trenches with the children.

Similarly, in the late 1990s, I was elected to the American Psychological Ethics Committee, where I served for 5 years. At the same time I was appointed as the Ethics Committee liaison to the Ethics Code Revision Task Force. Although I thought I knew a lot about the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, working with the Code both in adjudication and in the revision process taught me much more-and so again, I was fortunate enough to be able to propose and teach an Ethics in Psychology course for undergraduate psychology majors. This course clearly fits the mission of John Carroll University. The synergy between my professional service activities and the courses I teach has been outstanding.

The Examined Life of a Teacher

I have begun site visits as a consultant-evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, one of six regional accrediting associations covering a 19 state area. As new accreditation standards took effect in 2004 with a pervasive theme of assessment, I have increasingly been mindful of student learning in all of my classes. In the past I have focused on ways to improve my teaching; now I see teaching as a catalyst to spark student learning. There is no point teaching if none of the students learn. My teaching today focuses squarely on student learning, and I often stop and see if the students are really with me in the learning environment. The best I can do is open a door to the students and encourage them. They are the ones who must walk through it.

I have come to believe that if I do not cover all of the material I think is important in a course, no one but me will notice. Less material taught in an eclectic manner will produce more student learning than more material covered in a hurried lecture style. Thus, as my teaching matures, I present less content but devote more class attention to the most important material in a variety of different modalities. I am rewarded when I have piqued a student's curiosity.

From my teaching, I find it most rewarding when I see that the light bulb has gone on in the students' minds. I cheer when a student who has been struggling comes up with an insightful question. Like a parent, I am thrilled with my students' progress and accomplishments. When a student wins a research award or is accepted into a wonderful graduate or law school, I could not be more proud. I am most frustrated when a student is in my class either does not want to learn or has distracting personal problems that interfere with the learning process. Nothing I can do will make a difference. I can only overcome this frustration through the realization that I can only touch so many minds, not every single one of them.

It is important to stay enthusiastic about the subject matter to keep your teaching fresh and alive. I stay enthusiastic primarily by continuing to be a learner myself. Although I am required to take a number of continuing education courses for both my psychologist and attorney licenses, I select them carefully and attend them on a regular basis. If I cannot relate them to my teaching I probably will pass them by. A course for practitioners on the recent history of the insanity defense, for example, gives me new information to use in several courses. One of the joys of teaching is being able to share new information or new insights with the students.

In addition, I attend the STP sessions at the APA and American Psychological Society (APS) meetings and always come home with new strategies for reaching the students. More important, however, is the fellowship with so many other psychologists from all over the globe that STP provides. These friendships have greatly enriched me as a person as well as my teaching. The same is true for the journal Teaching of Psychology.

Advice for New Teachers

To be a good or even an outstanding teacher, you must have a good grasp of the subject matter. The discipline has to be so interesting and fascinating to you that your students will feel your passion. Do not be fooled by people who say that teaching is such an easy career because once you get those lecture notes down on paper you can use them again and again, or by those who smile when they hear that there are 12 hour teaching weeks and winter, spring and summer vacations. Teaching is not easy and in fact is very difficult to do well. Here is my advice:

Work hard.

Love what you do.

Care intensely about student learning.

Have fun.

This page was first posted online on November 12, 2005 and was last updated on November 12, 2005

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